Group Calls for USPS Audit

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste told members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday that a complete, independent operational audit of the U.S. Postal Service is necessary.

In a letter to the Senate committee, council president Tom Schatz said that the group is encouraged by the committee's hearings, and that "fortified with the recommendations from the President's Commission on the [USPS], you now have a blueprint for change."

The commission recommended that the USPS be more transparent and accountable, but "the current regulatory regime fails to provide a complete picture of the agency's real revenues and expenditures," Schatz said.

The letter said the council fears that the USPS has leveraged its monopoly mail revenues to cross-subsidize many of its money-losing ventures.

Schatz said that even as the USPS fails to root out billions in waste, "officials continue to lobby Congress for the authority to expand into new lines of business and services in order to rationalize its sprawling infrastructure and bloated workforce."

Instead, the letter said, any first step toward reform should "act upon another key USPS commission finding: That the USPS is burdened with excess capacity, both in personnel and bricks and mortar infrastructure, and the first step in any postal reform effort must be 'right-sizing' the USPS."

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